AngryTechnician

I had also tried all the various troubleshooting above aside from publishing with a deadline. Not sure it will make any difference since setting a retrospective deadline in SCE simply forces AU to begin installing as soon as it detects the update rather than waiting for the schedule update time. Hopefully MS will have something to say now that they can reproduce it, so I'll wait for their response before burning any more time on this.

New member pomroy24 has briefly shared his experience of it on another thread where we were discussing a problem deploying large updates on Windows 7 SP1 (the problem happens in SCE too so not the fault of Local Update Publisher): http://Local Update Publisher in brief

Yep, works perfectly.

On a side note: Local Update Publisher is a tool I'd never heard of before today, and I think a lot of members here would be interested in hearing more about it. There was a thread started last month that didn't really get any traction, but if you've time, I for one would love to hear more about your presumably positive experiences with it (this one aside!)

Can't believe I've never seen this before, and that I missed this thread last month. This looks EXTREMELY useful. Nothing, if the application has one. I have a number of applications that don't deploy that way, Office 2010 being a major one.

I think I can save you some time there: both of those updates (KB979309 and KB978601) are deployed to my pre-SP1 workstations, and they still work fine. They show up as "Security Updates" rather than "Critical Updates" in WSUS, if that helps explain why you didn't see them before.

Just had a read through of your above linked thread: my SCE server is running Server 2008 R2 SP1, and the problem still occurs, so I wouldn't get your hopes up on having both on SP1 being the fix.

Do the scripts work if you run them manually?

As NM, my line manager is the Bursar, who sits on SMT at equal level to the HM (i.e. reports directly to the governors). I believe this is a common arrangement in independent schools, where the role of the Bursar is typically more powerful and wide-ranging than in state schools.

Erm... "citation needed" there too IMO! Fisher Price interface, anyone?

I had thought about posting this on Edugeek myself, but figured anyone on here would have spotted it during testing. Kind of tragic that the incorrect binaries have been on Adobe's site for a month now.

Test very carefully - especially software deployments after it's installed. I have an ongoing issue with large packages (such as Office) not installing on any SP1 machines when published via System Center Essentials. I believe SCCM uses a different deployment model but be sure to test it thoroughly.

Thanks for the compliment, but my guide only covers streaming of live broadcasts, not recording - at the moment. Also you're in the US according to your location icon, and since my guide only covers DVB-T broadcasts, I'm not sure how much use it will be since I don't think that standard is used much over there. For recording for later playback, I'd echo the recommendation for using Media Centre on Vista or Windows 7 if you are able. Get hold of a WinTV card and everything else you need is built in to Windows. Schedule a recording, copy to a network share, playback with Windows Media Player.

I've seen that (rarely) before SP1. I had hoped it would be fixed, but apparently not?

Unless I'm missing something in that script, it deletes everything in the Recycle Bin, not just things that have been deleted for a certain number of days. Here's one that only deletes things that have been there a while, if that's what you're after.

When I tried out LibreOffice (a recent fork of OpenOffice) I noticed that there is no first run wizard by default. Worth a look, perhaps?

The two places I can think of to do this in Group Policy are: Computer Configuration > Policies > Windows Settings> Security Settings > Local Policies > Security Options; check the Accounts: Administrator account status setting Computer Configuration > Preferences > Control Panel Settings > Local Users and Groups If you've done an RSoP and those sections don't have anything incriminating, I think you can rule of Group Policy as a cause.

Looked like the workstation was locked to me. He'd blatantly been asked to pose for "a shot of you using the computer" by the camera crew. This is why whenever our marketing people ask me to stage stuff I tell them to sod off; it always looks fake.

I've never heard of this, and frankly wouldn't trust one if it did exist. Manufacturers typically prohibit redistribution of their drivers except through their own official channels, so anyone making such a disk would be on shaky ground legally, at which point you have to question what other legalities they might be willing to skirt. Besides, it would be out of date almost the moment it was compiled.

Are the machines older, single core machines? Our office staff complained of something similar until I replaced their machines last summer, I put it down to something else on the machine causing an intermittent CPU spike (as you've already suspected, it seems). Of course, with a dual core (or hyper-threaded) machine, one rogue process can't hit 100%.

If this were a commercial item, I would absolutely buy one.

Since 2005. I'm not sure I'd categorise the users I looked after in industry as any less daft though!

About 10 years now, frighteningly. Maybe my users aren't as daft as yours?

And by "ancient hardware", read "a printer bought 3 years ago". A distressing number of peripherals (not just printers) don't have working 64-bit drivers. Check your inventory before making a decision.

Thinking about picking up a used iPad to evaluate for the school as there's almost certainly going to be a glut of them in the market real soon. Given that I've never used any iOS device for more than about 10 minutes before, I have some dumb questions for those that know. Basically, what are the disadvantages to picking up a used model, other than the used condition and lack of full warranty? If it has any warranty left, will that be honoured? How does account association work? Do I just reset it and set it up on a different iTunes account or something? What accessories come with it that I need to make sure I get with a used one? Thanks in advance, and please leave Apple bashing at the door before answering.